Page 88 of Midnight Auto Parts

Women armed with knives and guns and flashlights—so many flashlights—patrolled the perimeter.

One of them I recognized. Keshawn. The remnants of her intricate braids were tangled atop her head as if she had given up on styling her hair or even washing herself.

Since Keshawn wasn’t able to see me, I skipped over her and went in search of her mother.

Most of the residents were sleeping. The ones who weren’t had gone to bed only to stare at the ceiling. I imagined they were the ones fresh off their shifts, too worked up for rest, but a few sported dark circles under their eyes that convinced me this was part of their nightly routine.

The lying awake. The wondering who would be next. The fear it would be them or someone they loved.

We searched the tents and surrounding area before soft conversation drew us to a small gathering in a makeshift cemetery. Five women stood over what appeared to be the most recent grave, though it must have been days old now, supporting a woman who sat in the mud with no care for her clothes, her head braced on her knees.

Stinging energy swept through me, and I sensed without turning that Tameka had appeared behind me. “How many have died?”

“Too many,” she rasped, frailer than the last time I saw her.

Jerking her head for us to follow, Tameka led us into a tent she zipped behind us.

“I don’t have much time, but we know what’s been preying on the women here.” I did my best to sit, but I must have resembled a drifting balloon. “A divine beast. A goddess named Anunit. She bound herself to the bones of her kin, and when the Morgans began stealing them, she was summoned to fulfill her oath of protection.” I saved the worst for last. “Anunit will take one life every night until the bones have been returned to their proper resting place.”

“Speak to the Morgans,” Vi told her. “Convince them what must be done.”

Vi tapped her finger on my palm to remind me time was running out.

“Do this for me,” I bargained, “and I’ll wipe Keshawn’s debt clean. The ward will fall, you will come to the shop, and you will return the loaner. Then we’ll be even.”

“I’ll do it.” Eyes bright with unshed tears, she sprang to her feet. “I’ll go now.” She reached for my hands but couldn’t touch them. “I can’t thank you enough for this. Really, Frankie. Thank you.”

Seeing as how no one had been afraid of me a day in my life, the urgency edging her actions, her fraught desperation to please me, I attributed to the obsidian corona marking me as someone she ought to fear.

And I hated how different her treatment made me feel.

“I’ll be back in two hours.” I checked with Vi, who frowned when she realized I planned to skip the nap and recharge via magic yet again but nodded. “Have their answer ready for me then.”

“I can’t promise anything.” She fisted the tent zipper. “I’ll do my best, though.”

“The bones are the cost of Keshawn’s pardon,” Vi said, sparing me from being the bad guy.

“Then you’ll have the bones.” Newfound determination carved hollows in her cheeks. “With or without the Morgans’ blessing.”

Striding out with a sense of purpose, Tameka set herself to her task.

“We have a few minutes left,” Vi told me in the quiet. “Do you want to locate the Morgans? Get their take on this latest attack?”

“Good idea.”

We retraced our earlier steps, but the sisters seemed to have vanished into thin air. Vi and I only had so much time left, and the commune encompassed a large tract of land. We couldn’t search it all. That meant ditching the Morgans to focus on another problem.

“I can’t sense the bones from outside the ward.” I had been turning that over in my head for a while now. The Plan B to save us from the promised death branded onto anyone who touched those bones. “I need to determine if I can sense them now that we’re on the inside. Watch my back?”

There had been no immediate indicator pinging in my head, but with so much magic thick in the air, and so many bones in play, I might not be able to distinguish individual signatures.

The tree, at least, would be easy to locate since the Morgans weren’t keeping its location—only its purpose—secret.

“Of course.”

Together we walked until we reached the ward and then we edged along its rippling surface until I felt Kierce caressing my hand in a plea to return to him. Time was up.Again.I should have gone with Tameka. They couldn’t see or hear me, but I could have helped her present an argument to the Morgans complete with a firsthand account. This had been a waste of…

A cold presence began thrumming in my head. “Do you feel that?”

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